On occupied Vixen, Flandry captures Clanmaster Temulak and subjects him to sensory deprivation:
"No sensory impressions could reach him from outside. It was painless, it did no permanent harm, but the mind is not intended for such isolation."
-"Hunters of the Sky Cave," X, p. 229.
No physical harm but maybe, in some cases, lasting psychological damage? The effects, as described by Anderson, are:
an hour soon seems like a day, then like a week or a year;
no sense of space or of external reality;
hallucinations;
the crumbling of the will.
If we not only had no sensations but also had no thoughts, memories, images etc arising in the mind, then would we be conscious? The question is academic since we always have thoughts arising - or at least most of us do most of the time.
If we were confident that sensory deprivation was harmless, then would we be able to relax and to disregard the question of how much time was passing? Or would we begin to worry that we were going to be left in that state indefinitely?
In zazen, "just sitting," mediation, we sit in a quiet room facing a blank wall. However, we see the wall, feel what we are sitting on, hear any background sounds, sit for only a limited period and can stop sitting at any time. We do have thoughts arising but practice letting go of them. Might someone who was well practiced in zazen be better equipped to endure sensory deprivation?
Here, Alan Watts says that prisoners in North Vietnam were put facing a wall as a form of torture whereas, if they had been practiced in "just sitting," then this would not have been torture. John Blofeld describes Tibetan Buddhists practicing creative visualization while sensorily deprived. Is this possible or was Blofeld just reproducing someone else's imagined account?
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Clanmaster Temulak was a moderately high ranking officer certain to have information the Empire would urgently need to obtain to help deal with the totally unexpected Ardazirho invasion. He had also refused to voluntarily agree to being interrogated by Flandry. So, given both the urgent circumstances and Flandry taking care to cease the sensory deprivation once Temulak finally cracked and agreed to cooperate in being questioned, I saw nothing wrong in what Flandry did.
I recall how Anderson wrote in MURDER IN BLACK LETTER that experiments had been done on sensory deprivation on volunteers who knew it would stop any time they wished. I'm sure more studies has been done on sensory deprivation in the sixty years since then. Including, perhaps, experiments with volunteers who practiced zazen.
Ad astra! Sean
Jesus Christ in the foothills, that cover! I remember when it came out that it would be embarrassing to read in public.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I absolutely agree! Whoever chose that ghastly cover at Baen Books for SIR DOMINIC FLANDY had to be an ENEMY OF Anderson!
And that weird looking woman! Furry as a goat and with an INSECTOID look to her! At least I thought her lower parts reminded me of insects.
Ad astra! Sean
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